Dror Bar-Natan

Dror Bar-Natan
Dror Bar-Natan (photo by George Bergman)
Born	January 30, 1966 (1966-01-30) (age 45) Israel
Nationality	Israeli
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	National University of Colombia
Alma mater	Princeton University
Doctoral advisor	Edward Witten
Doctoral students	Hernando Burgos Soto

Dror Bar-Natan (Hebrew: דרוֹר בָר-נָתָן‎; born January 30, 1966, Israel) is a mathematics professor at the University of Toronto, Canada. His main research interests include knot theory, finite type invariants, and Khovanov homology.

Education

Bar-Natan earned his B.Sc. in mathematics at Tel Aviv University in 1984. After performing his military service as a teacher, he went to study at Princeton University in 1987. He obtained his Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton in 1991, under the direction of physicist Edward Witten.^[1]

Professorship

After holding a Benjamin Peirce Assistant Professorhip at Harvard University for four years from 1991–95, he returned to Israel, and became Associate Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He moved to the University of Toronto in 2002, and was promoted to Full Professor in 2006.^[2]

Personal life

Bar-Natan holds both US and Israeli citizenships, and is a permanent resident of Canada. He is married to mathematician Yael Karshon and is the father of two sons, Assaf and Itai.^[2]

Research

In 1999, Bar-Natan collaborated on a paper with the goal of mathematically refuting claims made in The Bible Code by Michael Drosnin that hidden messages could be deciphered from within the bible. In particular, he demonstrated that practically any "code" could be found within the bible, thereby debunking Drosnin's "discovery" of specific codes. This work is outside the main scope of his academic interests, although he is known for it because of the popularity of The Bible Code.^[3]

Academically, Bar-Natan has made significant contributions to the formalization of Khovanov homology.

Bar-Natan is a member of the Editorial Board for the journal Compositio Mathematica.^[4]

Selected Publications

• Bar-Natan, D (1996) On the Vassiliev knot invariants, Topology, Volume 34, Issue 2, April 1995, Pages 423-472

References

1. ^ Dror Bar-Natan, Mathematics Genealogy Project. Accessed December 20, 2010
2. ^ ^{a b} Dror Bar-Natan — Curriculum Vitae
3. ^ Bar-Natan, D with Brendan McKay, Gil Kalai and Maya Bar-Hillel; Statistical Science 14-2 (1999) 150-173)
4. ^ Editorial Board, Compositio Mathematica. Accessed December 20, 2010

Persondata
Name	Bar-Natan, Dror
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	January 30, 1966
Place of birth	Israel
Date of death
Place of death